I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Philippians 4:10-23

This comes at the end of a series going through the letter Paul wrote to the church in Philippi.

In the rest of the letter Paul encourages the Philippians to stand firm as a church together, loving and serving each other. We’ve seen him encourage them to shine for Jesus together with joy, looking forward to the prize of being with Jesus after we die. Paul finishes by encouraging them to not worry, but instead to pray, rejoice and focus on Jesus.

His letter could quite happily end there – after all, Paul has been saying “Finally…” since the beginning of chapter 3! But Paul finishes with thanking the Philippians for supporting him. It’s not just a quick “PS – cheers for the gift, love Paul;” it’s a glimpse into the beautifully warm and dearly-loving relationship that he had with the church in Philippi, and a glimpse into how as a church family together we can give to each other and the mission partners that we support.

In our Bibles this section has been given the very modest title of ‘God’s Provision’. God is a God who provides, it’s true. Yet sometimes we Christians can be tempted to use “God provides” as a kind of stock phrase when someone shares that they’re in need, and we want them to feel better, but we’re not quite sure what to say. I hope and pray that tonight as we look at this together that we’ll see that there is so, so much more to this than a well-meaning cliché. I pray we’ll see that the fact God provides for us has so much more power for our joy and contentment and generosity than we can dream!

Because we can be content in hardship, and joyful in giving. Because God provides.

Content In Hardship

So, first, let’s look at how can be content in hardship.

I said above that in Paul’s letter to the Philippian church we get a glimpse into the relationship that he had with them. In this final bit of his letter he thanks the church for the gift they had sent to him with Epaphroditus, and reassures them that he is OK.

How is Paul OK? When he wrote this letter, he was in prison. He was away from home. He had already sent Epaphroditus away to carry this letter back to Philippi, and he was about to send Timothy to see them too. And as we’ve read through Philippians we’ve seen hints that Paul is waiting to hear the verdict on his case, and that verdict might well be execution.

So what is he saying? Is he just saying “I’m fine!” like we do sometimes when we’re not really “fine” but we don’t want to talk about it?

Is he being overly optimistic, saying “yeah, it’s all fine” and not really grasping just how serious his situation is?

Well, no.

Paul has learned a secret. “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” (v12b). That’s some secret! That sounds like the kind of secret that’s worth knowing!

Because in that first paragraph Paul talks about being content in every situation – whether he’s hungry or full; whether he’s weak or strong; whether he’s on top of the world, or down in the dumps.

“I have learned the secret.”

Part of that secret is obedience. Looking at verse 11, Paul says “… I have learned that in whatever situation I am to be content.”

Now, he doesn’t say “I know how to be immune to anything that happens to me.” It’s not that Paul has become so super-Christian that he never gets affected by anything, as if he’s achieved some kind of blissful enlightenment. Actually, if we read closely, it sounds more like a decision: “I have learned that I should be content”. For Paul, contentment wasn’t about what he felt. It was about making a choice to obey God.

When God gave His people the 10 Commandments back in Exodus 20, he made the final one “You shall not covet”. Coveting is about yearning for, craving something you don’t have. And it’s wrong because obsessing over things you don’t have means that either you don’t believe the all-loving, all-powerful God wants or even can give you what you need; or you don’t believe that the all-knowing, all-wise God has the right idea about what you need. And this kind of desperate longing can lead to all kinds of other sin like the stealing, lying and murder that God also commanded His people to not do.

So when Paul was in hard circumstances, he could see that the needs he felt could tempt him to covet the things that would satisfy those needs: Food. Security. Money. Rest. Love.

He had a choice: give in to the coveting, or choose to be content.

Choose to say ‘NO’ to those cravings and believe that God would give him what he really needed, when he really needed it.

This wasn’t an easy choice – he had to learn to do it. Learning involves hard work. It takes time and effort. And learning to be content is hard work. It’s hard when you’ve spent the entire night awake and you just need some sleep. It’s hard when you’ve lost your job and you don’t know how you’re going to afford to live. It’s hard when all your well-made plans seem to go up in smoke. It’s not the kind of thing we can do just on willpower.

But we have far, far more than our own willpower. Paul says, “I have learned the secret… I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (v12b, 13)

We can choose to be content because God strengthens us to face everything.

God is the commander of creation, the pinnacle of power, the source of salvation – and He promises to live in His people by the Holy Spirit and empower us to do what is right (Phil 2:12-13). God Himself strengthens us.

And He strengthens us to face everything.

It’s not about having some superhero-like experience where you get divinely zapped and then you have some kind of ULTIMATE POWER which means you can do whatever you set your mind to. It’s something that can look far less impressive, but is far more profound, than that. If we think back through what we’ve already heard in Philippians, we see hints of what this strength is:

It’s the strength to take joy in people hearing about Jesus, however it happens (1:18).

It’s the strength to really believe that “…to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (1:21).

It’s the strength to shine in this dark world by being willing to lay down our lives for each other, doing everything without grumbling because we know our reward is in heaven (2:1-15).

It’s the strength to deeply care for others and take risks in serving God and each other (2:19-30).

It’s the strength to press on to know Jesus, throwing everything else behind you like you’d hurl rubbish into the tip (3:8, 12).

It’s the strength to pray, be thankful and look to Jesus instead of worry (4:5-7).

This doesn’t mean that we aren’t allowed to feel our needs or cry out to God about them – back in verse 6 Paul encouraged the Philippians to tell God about every need they had.

But it does mean that we shouldn’t be consumed by the needs that we feel, because if we ask Him to, God will give us the strength to be content in the middle of hardship, instead of snatching at what we think we need.

It’s a big encouragement for the days when we struggle, because we can have peace knowing that God will help us get through it.

But it’s also a big challenge, because it means that we have no excuse to not be content.

Anyone who has lived with me for longer than a couple of weeks knows that being content is not something that comes easily to me. I’m a perfectionist by nature and I find it easy to see the problems with things. And I also fall into the trap of thinking that having a bad day gives me the right to be selfish. So I’m in there with anyone who feels the challenge of realising that no matter how late the neighbours kept me awake last night, no matter how worried I am about work, and no matter how much I want to be left alone, I have no excuse to be selfish and grumpy. Because if I ask Him, God will give me the energy to honour Him throughout the day; He will give me the faith to trust Him when life is difficult; He will give me the grace to serve others when I’d much rather run away and hide.

I can testify to every single one of those things.

I know from experience that if I trust that God will give me the strength I need, I really can do everything that He asks me to do. It’s not because of me, it’s because of God.

Believing that we can do all things through God giving us strength doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t ask others for help, but it does transform how we should go about asking for help. We’ll look at that a bit more later.

We’ve looked at how we can be content in hardship, and now let’s see how we can be joyful in giving.

Joyful in Giving

I’ve already said that part of the reason that Paul is writing to the church in Philippi is because he wants them to know that he’s OK. He knows that they have been deeply concerned for his welfare (v10).

The Philippian church had been funding Paul’s ministry since he had left them about 10 years before. They had supported him when he left the district of Macedonia to continue his ministry in southern Greece – in fact, verse 15 says they were the only church that did. They even helped him out when he was in Thessalonica, which was just down the road from them.

Paul says they “shared [his] trouble.” (v14). Through their love for him and continued relationship with him over a distance, they cared about Paul so much that they felt concern for him even if they weren’t able to practically do anything to help him out, like it says in verse 10.

This wasn’t a mere affiliation between a patron and a beneficiary. It was real relationship; the kind of relationship that sent Epaphroditus all the way to Paul’s prison in Rome to give him what he needed. I looked up on Google how long that would take, and it’s 10 days of non-stop walking now!

The Philippian church clearly loved to love Paul and provide for him when they could. They took great joy in giving to him generously.

And Paul was rejoicing that they did. It wasn’t because of what he could get from them. He makes a real point of saying that he wasn’t looking to squeeze money out of them. It was actually because by giving to him, the Philippians were laying up treasures in heaven for themselves. Verse 17 says, “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.” Paul knew that by telling the Philippians about his needs and asking them to help, he was giving them the opportunity to sacrificially give as their worship: that what they gave to him could be “…a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” (v18b). Their joyful giving was a fruit, a result, of their faith in Jesus. And joyful, generous giving comes from hearts that are content, from hearts that know that God will supply everything they need (v13, 19).

So how do we give to others? Is it a begrudging portion of what’s left over after the bills have been paid, the food has been bought, and the holiday has been booked?

Do we think of it as an obligation to comply with, or an opportunity to worship God?

Who are the Mission Partners or Missionaries that your church supports?

Who do you support personally in their own work of spreading the news about Jesus, whether by praying for them or by giving them money?

In our joyful giving to support those who tell others about Jesus, we shouldn’t only give from our pockets. What comes from our pockets should flow out of our hearts. Look at the bottom of our passage. It talks about the greetings that the Philippian church and the Christians with Paul shared with each other – they love each other, care for each other, and delight in the unity they have in Jesus, even over a distance.

So how do we give to the people we support? Do we genuinely care about them as people? Or have we set up a Standing Order, added them to a prayer list, and then forgotten about them?

How often do we affirm and share the love that we have for each other in Jesus? How much do we do this with those we pray for from a distance?

So as a whole church family, we should truly love our Mission Partners. Our financial giving should come from a place of love. And we should give that love, too. And the generosity of our giving should come from a place of joyfully trusting that God provides for our own needs, too.

If you’re ever a full-time Christian worker in the position of needing to ask others to give towards your ministry, think about how and why you ask for support. Is it because you’re merely looking to satisfy your own needs? Of course, if you need to raise support, it’s right to ask for it. But are you asking selfishly?

Or are you asking because you’re looking for the opportunity for fruit to grow in your brothers and sisters in Christ? For them to worship God and lay up for themselves treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:20) as they give to you?

We’ve seen that we can be content in hardship, and joyful in giving, and I’ll finish by looking at why: Because God provides.

Because God Provides

When you think about being content in hardship, and being joyful in giving, you realise that it needs a whole lot of trust in God.

Sometimes trust can be hard – it’s a literal leap of faith! Because when you choose to trust you don’t know for sure that what you’re trusting will happen, will happen; because the nature of trust is that you can’t see what you’re trusting.

But there are ways in which we trust without noticing. I trust that the roof above us has been built and maintained well enough that it isn’t going to collapse on our heads – if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here! When I was a kid and the nurse stabbed me with a needle, I trusted that injection would stop me from getting whatever nasty bug I was being vaccinated against. I trust my employer to pay my salary on time, so when my bank balance is looking low at the end of the month I’m not worried because I know my pay check is about to land in my account.

We trust because we’ve had past experience that what we’re trusting will do what we’re trusting it to do.

In verses 18 and 19 Paul tells the Philippians that “…I am well supplied… And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” God has provided for Paul’s needs through the Philippians, so he knows that God will provide for the Philippians too.

But we have far greater reason to trust God than Paul’s experience.

There is one massive way in which God has already provided for us. For our greatest need.

Our greatest need is to have our sin dealt with so that we can be made right with God. Because the things we do and think and say that are wrong have broken our relationship with God, which bears the punishment of separation from Him and all that is good in hell. But when Jesus died on the cross He took the punishment for our sin instead of us, so that we could be given the ‘not guilty’ verdict that He deserved.

God gave His own Son to die in our place.

In Romans 8:32 it says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

If God gave Jesus, His beloved Son, to die for our sins, anything else is small fry!

If He would give us that much, why wouldn’t He give us everything else that we need?

The cross is proof that God provides. Because we know Jesus died on that cross, because we know He was raised to life again, and because we know that He went to heaven and now speaks to the Father on our behalf (Rom 8:34), we can be confident that God will give us “all things”. All He has promised in heaven, and all that we need now.

The bread and wine that we share together in the Lord’s Supper are a gift because they remind us that Jesus really did die for our sins. And this reminds us that, just as on Good Friday God fulfilled His promise to save us from our sins, God will fulfil every other promise He has ever made!

Including the one to provide for our every need.

Including the one to strengthen us to face everything.

So if you’re a Christian and you’re in the position of needing something and you’ve prayed and prayed for it, and it looks like God isn’t providing for you, remember the cross. Remember that God the Father gave the person most precious to Him for your sake – and He has done that already. Remember that He has the power to provide for you, and He has promised to provide for you what you need. Sometimes it looks like giving us what we ask for. Sometimes it looks like giving us the strength to be content in spite of whatever’s going on. Sometimes it’s both.

If you’re not a Christian, this is what’s on offer for you: right relationship with God, the promise of true contentment in this life, the promise of heaven after you die.

And the kind of contentment that gives means that as a church family we can joyfully give of ourselves to others, and to each other.

It means that we can stand firm as a whole church family in joy and serving together.

This evening we’re going to be looking at king Josiah. When I was first asked to preach on Josiah, I was really excited. The kings of Judah were a mixed bag of great, godly men and horrible villains, and Josiah is a great example of godliness. He’s one of the kings that make you think, “Yes, here’s a good one!”

Last week Henry preached about king Hezekiah, who was one of the better kings of Judah, but between him and Josiah were two awful ones, Manasseh and Amon. Manasseh filled the nation with idols and was so evil and bloodthirsty that God said that He would wipe Jerusalem out and give the people over to their enemies. Amon was just as bad as Manasseh was. So Josiah is a great relief!

Tonight we’ll see that yes, Josiah was a great king. But we’ll also see that he was a king who couldn’t save his people. But he points to a King who can. The full story is in 2 Kings 22 and 23.

Josiah: the king who could not save

Josiah’s story starts fairly quietly. There was some repair work going on at the temple. The workmen needed to be paid, so Josiah ordered Shaphan the secretary to ask Hilkiah the high priest to open the temple coffers and pay the men. But while he was getting the money together, Hilkiah found a book. You can imagine him digging around in the temple store-rooms and stumbling across this big, old, dusty scroll. What is it? Hilkiah passed it on to Shaphan, who read it. And Shaphan read it to the king.

When Josiah heard what the book said, he tore his clothes in alarm and anguish and grief. What on earth was in this book?

This book wasn’t just any book that that you get because it looks nice and leave it on the shelf, or you forget about it and put it away, where it gathers dust. It was the Book of the Law – what we have in our Bibles now as the book of Deuteronomy. It contained all of the covenant that God had made with His people; commands to live by, instructions on how to worship Him, and what would happen if they broke it. It was supposed to be available to every king of God’s people so he could lead them faithfully. But it had been lost or hidden away in the temple, and this is the first time Josiah had read it.

And when it was read to him, his blood ran cold. Because he read things like this:

“You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you… lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 6:14-15

“…if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.”

Deuteronomy 8:19

“When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you are not ensnared to follow them… for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.”

Deuteronomy 12:29-31

Josiah realised that his kingdom was doing exactly what God had told them not to do.

The nation was full of the idols that the LORD commanded them not to worship. Baal, Asherah, the ‘host of heaven’ and the sun in the temple. Altars on the palace roof. Shrines on hills up and down the country, for the Ashtoreth of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the god of the Moabites, for Milcom the god of the Ammonites. A valley outside Jerusalem where children were sacrificed to Molech!

God explicitly said that if His people worshipped these gods, He would wipe them off the face of the earth. We saw earlier in our series in Kings that God always keeps His word, and Josiah knew this. He knew God is perfectly just, and would keep His promise to avenge the broken covenant.

He knew his kingdom stood on the edge of destruction.

He knew what that would look like, because the northern kingdom of Israel had already been conquered and destroyed as God had promised.

But Josiah also knew God well enough to seek Him.

He sent Hilkiah, Shaphan and three others to have an emergency conference with God. Through Huldah the prophetess God said that He would carry out the destruction that Josiah had read about, because the nation had forsaken Him and followed other gods.

His unquenchable wrath, His furious anger, was burning against Judah because they had provoked and provoked Him with their idolatry and evil. He said there would be a point of no return, where they became so evil and had broken the covenant so much that He had to punish them because He is a perfectly just God, and justice had to be satisfied.

He gave them years of chances to not get to that point. He warned them and warned them not to go there.

But they didn’t listen. Manasseh crossed that line. And God couldn’t let it slide.

The end was coming, and there was no escape.

But have a look at God’s message to Josiah in 22:18-20: “Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the LORD, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the LORD. Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.”

Josiah believed that God was merciful as well as just, so turned to Him in his distress. God heard his cry and responded with mercy. He postponed the nations’ destruction for Josiah’s sake.

God never lies, and God always keeps His promises. The promises about judgement and wrath as well as the promises about blessing. He could not break His word by ignoring what His people had done. His wrath would fall on them. But God isn’t cruel. He showed mercy to Josiah by postponing His wrath so that Josiah wouldn’t have to live through the horrors that were to come. All because Josiah’s heart was penitent. Because he grieved over how he and the nation had broken their covenant relationship with God.

And we see more of Josiah’s heart towards God in what he did next.

If I told you that you were going to die this time next week, how would you use your last days on earth? Would you quit work? Would you go to see your family? Would you throw caution to the wind and do everything you had ever wanted to do, because you might as well, right? What does it matter?

Although it was certain that his nation’s days were numbered, Josiah didn’t do any of that. If you read on into chapter 23, you’ll see that he obeyed God. He led the whole nation in repentance, starting with himself. At the beginning of chapter 23 we see that he gathered the whole country together to read the Book of the Law to them and re-commit to the covenant that they had broken. He was the first to make a public commitment to walk after God and keep God’s commands with all his heart and soul.

He then ruthlessly destroyed all the idols he could find; burning, pulverising or desecrating them so that nobody could use them again.

He got rid of all his father’s mediums and necromancers, and all of the self-appointed priests of other gods; and ordered that the Passover, the festival of God’s saving relationship with His people, would be celebrated like never before.

This scale of repentance was so unprecedented in history that the Bible calls Josiah unique out of all the kings of Israel and Judah. Chapter 23:25 says that “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might…” Not Solomon. Or Hezekiah. Or even David, who God called “a man after his own heart”! (1 Samuel 13:14)

This sounds like it should have been the kingdom’s ‘happily ever after’. Surely now God would say that He wouldn’t destroy the kingdom after all, like how we saw last week that He healed Hezekiah after He said he would die? Surely now things would be ok?

Well, no. Verses 26 and 27 say, “Still the LORD did not turn from the burning of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. And the LORD said, ‘I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.’”

You see, for all of his godliness, Josiah couldn’t quench God’s wrath. God is perfect. He would keep His word about the judgement coming on Judah, and nothing would stop Him from doing it. It was only a matter of time.

Josiah couldn’t change the people’s hearts, either – his heart turned to God, but he couldn’t turn the heart of the nation. After him, all the kings of Judah did evil, including his sons.

There’s an important thing to remember here: our leaders cannot save us. Because what matters is your own personal response to God, not the faith of your friends or your family or your pastor.

No human can save us from the wrath of God. Ever.

So what hope do we have?

Unbeatable hope.

Because nobody can save us from the wrath of God… except God Himself. As much as Josiah was a human king who couldn’t save, Jesus is God, and He is the King who saves His people.

Jesus, the King who saves

Jesus is the King who saves. He’s the King who quenches God’s wrath, and the King who changes our hearts.

We’re in a similar situation to Josiah. In Romans 1 the Bible says that “…the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (v18) It says that humans should be able to see enough about who God is in the world around us to worship Him, but instead we refuse to worship Him and worship other things instead.

So God is revealing His wrath. Against us.

For Josiah and his people, God’s wrath looked like having a foreign nation conquer them, destroy their home, and take them far away as slaves.

For everyone, God’s wrath ultimately comes after death. All of us, after we’ve died, will come before God and He will judge whether we have done right or wrong. And those found guilty of unrighteousness will be condemned to eternal, horrific pain and destruction. The Bible calls it hell.

Not many of us would naturally think of ourselves as being bad enough to deserve that. It’s horrible! But righteousness is about living in a way that’s completely perfect, living in God’s way.

Have you ever not had God as the most important person in your life?

Has something else ever been more important to you than doing what He says?

Have you ever talked about God as if He doesn’t matter?

Have you ever not taken a day off each week to spend resting and enjoying God?

Have you ever yelled, “I hate you!” at your parents? Or thought it? Or thought it about someone else?

Have you ever craved something that someone else has and wanted it for yourself? Or taken something that isn’t yours? Or daydreamed about taking something that’s not yours to have?

Have you ever not quite told the truth?

God says all of these things are unrighteousness. Another word for it is sin. By doing any of them we are exposing that we suppress the truth that God exists. We declare that don’t want God to be here. We declare that we want God dead so that we can be god instead and obey our own rules. So even if you’ve only done one of these things, you’ve shown that you want God dead. And it counts as deserving His wrath.

We all stand on the brink of destruction.

But we don’t have to be here. Because our God, who is perfectly holy and can’t stand injustice, is the very God who jumps at the chance to forgive.

One of the things that Josiah did was to get the people to keep the Passover like never before. Passover was a celebration of how God rescued His people out of slavery in Egypt. He did it by making His wrath for sin fall on the whole country, killing every firstborn child. But His people were protected by killing a lamb and putting its blood on the doors of their houses, to show that something else had died instead of them.

Later on we’re going to be sharing Communion together. When Jesus first taught His disciples to share Communion He wasn’t just celebrating Passover, He was totally transforming it. Because the Passover, and Communion, were all pointing to His far greater rescue.

They were pointing to how Jesus quenches God’s wrath.

When Jesus died, the full fury of God’s wrath that was hanging over our heads for every unrighteous thing that we have done fell on Him instead. The unquenchable fire was quenched by the blood of Jesus as it ran down the cross. He swapped His righteousness for our sin and, like that Passover lamb, He was killed for our sin in our place.

He did it so that whoever believes in Jesus will be saved from God’s wrath. From destruction.

If you have Jesus as your Saviour, every time you mess up, even now, His blood on the cross says, ‘that has already been paid for.’

If you’re here and you wouldn’t call yourself a Christian, please hear this: All of us have God’s wrath hanging over us – me, you, and everyone else here. I know it’s not nice to hear, but I’d be lying to you if I pretended it wasn’t true. But please, please also hear this: you don’t have to be in danger. Come to Jesus – you’ll find that He is far more kind, more loving, more understanding than you could ever dream. And He is the only one who can save you from destruction. Because He is the only one who has taken God’s wrath in our place.

In chapter 22:19, God tells Josiah that because his heart was penitent, He wouldn’t have to face His wrath. The Hebrew word that’s translated as “penitent” here could also be translated as “tender.” Josiah’s heart was soft towards God.

When God spoke, he listened.

When God spoke, he responded.

And that’s all that God asks of us. To respond when He speaks. So please listen to what God is saying here.

Listen to His warning.

Listen to His promise to rescue you.

And respond by asking Him to save you.

God showed Josiah mercy when he repented, and He’ll do the same for you, too. All you need to do is say to Him, “I’m sinful. I’m sorry. Please save me.” And God will stop you from every having to see hell.

If you’re here and you are a Christian, remember what Jesus has saved you from. Be humbled by the lengths God has gone to save you. That Jesus died to make you right with Him.

Fear His awesome holiness that meant that cost.

Know that because Jesus has made you righteous, you are precious and perfect in God’s sight, even though you still get stuff wrong now.

As you eat the bread and drink the wine when we share Communion together, remember that Jesus’ body was broken, His blood ran down that cross, for you. And it shields you from God’s wrath and makes you clean.

But also don’t keep the news to yourself!

When he found the book of the Law, Josiah gathered all the people to hear it. We aren’t kings with that kind of power now, but we can still take what opportunities we can to share what we’ve found. The reason that as a church we are praying for 100 people to become Christians in the next few years is because we want to see God saving more and more people from His wrath. The reason that we’ve said that we want to equip the church family to proclaim the Gospel is because we long to see God use us to bring more people to saving faith in Jesus.

It’s not something we can just sit on our hands about and wait for someone else to do! It won’t look the same for everyone, but we all have a part to play in sharing the news that Jesus saves us from God’s wrath.

We’ve seen that Josiah couldn’t save his people, but that Jesus does. And Jesus saves us from God’s wrath by absorbing it for us and making us righteous. And then He starts an inner revolution to change us.

Jesus, the King who changes our hearts.

Josiah had no power to change the hearts of his people, but that’s exactly what Jesus does for those who come to Him. Ephesians 5:25-27 says that Jesus gave Himself up for us to make us clean and present us to Himself in splendour, without any kind of imperfection, that we might be holy. If you want a long word for it, that’s called sanctification.

We are born with hearts that are against God and turn away from Him. Jesus died to give us the status of being righteous, and to work in us to change us into people who actually deserve to be called righteous.

It’s something that we need to work hard at ourselves. When Josiah realised just how bad the nation’s sin was, he literally smashed up their temptations. And we need to do the same. We need to have the same soft-heartedness that asks God for forgiveness, and the same resolve to destroy the idols in our hearts.

What tempts you away from God?

What idols are in your bedroom? On your dining table? At your desk?

What gods do you worship on your smartphone? With your credit card? In your diary?

What do you think and feel that you believe is more true than what God says?

Get rid of them! We must repent of all these! Because they are what turn us away from God.

Sin is not a pet to be tamed, it’s a monster that wants you dead. It drags you away from God so that you stop believing in Him and fall under His wrath. As theologian John Owen said, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” And this is what God by His Spirit wants to do in you. He wants to kill your sin. But He wants to do it with you.

Keep fighting. Remember, it’s not wrong to be tempted. But it is wrong to give in.

Sin inflamed the wrath that Jesus died to quench, so why would we go back to it?

Sin is what God promises to give us the power to fight, so why would we play into temptation’s hands?

Keep fighting. Keep working hard not just at killing sin, but growing in godliness. Join the revolution of God in your heart!

You aren’t alone. As a church family we’re committed to building each other up so that we’re growing in faith and godliness. So let’s be honest with each other about our struggles. Let’s help each other bear the burdens of the temptations we have to fight. Let’s fight with and for each other, praying for each other, being accountable to each other. Let’s be spiritual comrades in arms together.

Josiah was a king who loved God like no other. But he couldn’t save his people.

Jesus is a King like no other. And He’s the only King who can save us. He quenched God’s wrath when He died on the cross, and He changes our hearts to make us people who truly worship God and delight Him.

So come to Jesus. Come to the God of peace who will save you and make you completely perfect. Come to the God who will make your whole being blameless and holy and without blemish.

God is calling us. He is faithful, and He will surely do it (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

A couple of things that heavily influenced me while I was writing this were:

(This is an adapted transcript from a sermon I preached at my church back in August. You can listen to the real thing here.)

“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

Revelation 3:14-22 (ESV)

In the letters from Jesus to seven churches at the beginning of the book of Revelation, we can see that these churches faced a spectrum of challenges that every church faces today, whether it’s having to endure persecution from people outside the church, resisting false teaching from within, or dealing with problems in our own hearts.

If you aren’t a Christian, you might well be wondering how looking at the Bible could ever apply to you and what the point of even reading this is in the first place. But keep reading – see how God talks to His people, but also keep an eye out for how this might be relevant for you.

Let’s turn to this final letter that Jesus sends, addressed to the church in Laodicea.

In Romans 11:22 we’re called to “consider the kindness and the severity of God” and we’ll see that here. We’ll see the severity of Jesus towards a church that’s indifferent towards Him, and His immense kindness and generosity to that same church if she would turn to Him again.

The Severity Of Jesus

In the other letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus had something to commend them for. To Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum and Philadelphia He said, “You are enduring persecution and clinging to Me.” He commended Thyatira’s servant-heartedness and faithfulness. He even had something good to say to Sardis, who were spiritually dying but still had sparks of life and goodness to encourage.

But unlike His other letters, Jesus has nothing good to say about Laodicea. To them He says “I will spit you out of My mouth!” [v16].

Why?

A quick skim of the letter shows this is because Jesus sees them as lukewarm wretches; poor, blind and naked. To fully understand what He means, we need to understand the Laodicean church’s situation.

Laodicea was a wealthy city in the south east of modern-day Turkey. It was a big commercial and banking centre, with a large textiles industry famous for its wool and tunics. Its wealth made it a city of arts, science and literature. It was a leading centre of medicine, and was renowned for its healing eye ointment. Think about somewhere like Oxford or Cambridge today – beautiful, prosperous, and famous for its academia.

The city of Laodicea wasn’t just rich, it was absolutely loaded. In fact, the people of Laodicea were so well off that when the city was destroyed by an earthquake and the Emperor offered to help them rebuild, they said, “No thanks, we’ve got this”!

And it looks like the church in Laodicea had a similar attitude. In v17 Jesus tells them “… you say, I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing…” and why wouldn’t they? They lived in a wealthy and prosperous city. And do you notice – this letter doesn’t talk about persecution? On the surface, they were doing well.

But Jesus had a bombshell to drop on them: “You, are poor, blind and naked. You think you have everything, but you have nothing.”

The great irony of Laodicea’s situation is that they are the exact opposite of what they think they are. And they can’t see it! It’s their blindness to their spiritual situation that makes them think they don’t need anything.

And this complacency disgusts Jesus.

He says, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Hot and cold water are good in different ways, and the Laodicean church would have known this well. Hot water from the springs in Hierapolis a few kilometres to the north would have been good for bathing in. Cold water from the springs at Colossae just down the road would have been beautifully refreshing on a hot summer’s day.

But Laodicea didn’t have its own water supply, so it had to be piped in by aqueduct. And by the time that the water got to the city, it was lukewarm. It wasn’t refreshing like the cool water at Colossae or useful like the hot springs at Hierapolis. And it was full of stuff that made it taste absolutely gross. So gross that the Romans said it was only fit for slaves!

That’s why Jesus says, “I will spit you out of My mouth!” He’s saying that they were as foul and unusable to Him as their tepid water was to them. Their smugness and self-satisfaction made them indifferent to Him, and it makes Him sick.

It sickens Jesus that the church He has died and risen for has a relationship towards Him that could be described as: Meh.

Jesus isn’t being needy and whiney. He starts the letter by describing Himself as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness” [v14b]. He is the embodiment of God’s faithfulness and truthfulness. He sees things as they really are, and He doesn’t lie about it.

And Jesus will not pull His punches when it comes to challenging this complacent church. If they stay like this, He will reject them.

Because what can He do with a church that doesn’t love Him? That doesn’t listen to Him?

He is being so severe because this is so important. Jesus wants a Church that loves Him with all her heart, soul, mind and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37), because true worship and obedience to Him only comes from loving Him above all else.

If we find ourselves in a similar situation to the church in Laodicea – if we have plenty, if we are in a comfortable place and are enjoying life going well – we need to ask: are we as healthy on the inside as we look on the outside?

I’m not saying that good things like health and wealth are bad in themselves – after all, God provides good things for us to enjoy. But we can’t assume that doing well for ourselves on the surface means that our hearts are in the right place.

In fact, it can blind us to how we really are spiritually.

Think about it: when do we pray the most? It’s when we need something, isn’t it?

If I think I really need something, like a good night’s sleep after a week of insomnia, or a holiday I’ve been desperately looking forward to, or for the bus to really not be late today, God hears about it from me a lot.

But He rarely hears anything from me about the roof over my head, the wages I’m paid, or anything else I take for granted. But nothing has changed – I still need Him to provide those things, even though I’ve forgotten that.

You see, if we don’t feel how much we need God, we can forget that we need Him.

We can forget that He provides everything for us.

We can forget that in and of ourselves we are wretches with hearts prone to wander into sin.

We can forget that it’s by God’s grace and Jesus’ blood alone that we are saved from hell.

So, like the church in Laodicea, we’ll think “I don’t need anything” and our hearts will cool towards Him.

Our attitude towards the Saviour who provides for us, cares for us, who died to save us, will go from passionate worship to: Meh.

How do we stop that?

Jesus tells Laodicea, and us, the answer.

The Kindness Of Jesus

We’ve seen that Jesus has warned the church in Laodicea that if they don’t change He will reject them. But Jesus hasn’t given up on this tepid church. We’ve seen His severity. And now we’ll see His kindness.

You see, the Laodicean church’s indifference to Jesus may have made Him want to throw up, but He hasn’t abandoned them yet.

If you look at the beginning of Revelation 2, you’ll see a picture of Himself that Jesus gives in His letter to the church in Ephesus. He held the stars and walked among the lampstands that represent the churches He is writing to. Jesus still holds the church in Laodicea in His hand, and He is still with her.

He says in verse 19, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” He is brutally honest in telling the church in Laodicea how it is because He loves them. Because He wants them to turn away from their complacency and love Him again.

And He gives this blind, naked church the remedy to her disease and poverty: “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.” (v18)

But how can a spiritually poor, blind and naked church do this?

The answer comes in verse 20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

They need to stop shutting Jesus out and invite Him in.

And when Jesus is invited in, He will eat with them. When the Bible was written, sharing a meal was all about intimacy. You wouldn’t invite just anyone round for dinner; eating together was about close friendship.

Jesus is using this as a picture of what knowing Him should be like. It’s not having Him safely on the outside and only talking to Him when we need something, and even then only through the letterbox of the closed door of our hearts. No, it’s welcoming Him in to the very core of our being and inviting Him to stay there, to live in the closest relationship that it is possible to have.

And Jesus doesn’t only offer close relationship with Himself. Each of the letters to the churches in Revelation finishes with a promise to “the one who conquers”, to those who endure in faith to the end. The promise He gives in this letter is this: “I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (v21)

This is huge! If we persevere in faith, we will sit on the throne of Jesus, who sits on the throne of the God the Father. We will one day share in Jesus’ rule over the whole universe!

This is God’s incredible grace, that the Lord Jesus would see a wretched people and call them to come to Him for riches. Riches that they can’t afford, but that He has already bought for them on the cross. Not the ‘health, wealth and happiness’ of the prosperity gospel, but the faith, purity and clarity of sight that Jesus has bought for us through His blood.

On the cross He paid the price to give us His righteousness to cover our shameful sin.

And faith in His sacrifice for us is worth far more than gold, because it is by faith alone that we have a right relationship with God.

And as part of having a living relationship with God, He sends His Spirit to live within us to help us see clearly.

So how do we buy this from Jesus? By being zealous and repenting like He told the church in Laodicea to do. By deliberately turning away from thinking we’re fine, and throwing ourselves on Him for everything.

If you’re a Christian here today, can you see what’s at stake?

Listen to the warning Jesus gives! Ask Him to show you the real state of your heart, not just where you think you’re at. And if you find you’re cold towards Him and you’ve shut Him out, then pray and ask Jesus to come in to your heart again – not just the threshold, but the kitchen and bedroom and even the downstairs toilet!

Because He wants your heart. He wants you to be spiritually rich and clothed and able to see through your faith and relationship with Him.

And when we turn away from being complacent, when we realise our blindness and self-satisfaction and ask Jesus to make us burn with passion for Him again, He promises to do just that!

So pray, ask to know Him more, to love Him more. And as He shows you how things really are, don’t stop talking to Him about how you need Him to change you.

Ask God to give you a greater yearning to know Him better. That you’ll look forward to hearing Him speak to you every day as you read your Bible.

That you will read your Bible!

This is the most precious book on earth! It is a record of God’s dealings with His people and what He has spoken to us. He has ensured that it would be written down for us to read. And thousands of others throughout history. God has given us the Bible so that we will know Him, and so we will know how to live in the best way possible.

So read it, every day, and ask that through reading it God will give you a greater desire for, delight in, and dependence on Him above anything else.

Ask God to give you a greater passion for Him that spills out into obedience to His command to love your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to love those who without hearing the Gospel will suffer God’s righteous judgment when they die.

If you’re reading this and don’t believe in Jesus, then can you see what’s at stake for you? Our God is not an idea. He’s a person. He cares about the way Christians live – not just the things you see them do, but in how they think and feel about Him. He cares about the way you live, too.

Jesus isn’t blind to our imperfections, although we might be. He knows what we’re really like, everything we regret and everything we hide. But time and time again He gives us the chance to choose what is right. That’s what repentance is – turning from doing what is wrong and going in the opposite direction.

This might sound terrifying. But God isn’t waiting for you to give Him the opportunity to attack you. He’s waiting for you to ask Him to forgive you so He can give you treasure beyond anything in this life, and heal your brokenness, and cover your shame.

The Laodicean church’s indifference towards Jesus disgusted Him, and we need to realise that if we’re lukewarm towards Him, or even don’t care about Him, the danger of rejection is real for us, too.

But Jesus gives us time to change, and if we repent, there is so much that He offers us.

Forgiveness for sin, every wrong that we’ve done.

Being accepted by God.

The right to become a child of God. To be loved by Him. To be protected by Him. To never be separated from Him.

Transformation from broken sinfulness to beautiful holiness.

An heir of God’s perfect kingdom.

That He will make everything work together for your benefit.

That when you die you will leave behind all pain and tears and live with God forever in a perfect world, and He will be more real to you than anything else you’ve known on earth.

Wouldn’t you want to be loved by God like that? You can! Jesus says that if anyone hears His call to repent of a lukewarm heart towards Him and lets Him in, He will.

So let’s remember the kindness and severity of God. How seriously He takes our relationship with Him – so seriously that He will reject us if we don’t truly love Him. But oh, how kind He is to us, that He promises so much to those who will let Him in.

When was the last time you went ‘Wow’? Was it the last time you went on holiday to a somewhere beautiful? Was it listening to your favourite music? Was it seeing something you haven’t seen before?

Now, we don’t all go ‘wow!’ at the same things. Someone can be completely obsessed about their latest gadget or favourite TV programme and it means nothing to me. But some things are just impressive. Like the fact that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on our planet. Or that although it’s only about 5cm long, a single Golden poison frog has enough poison to kill 10 people. Or that the human brain has enough memory to hold three million hours of TV! But the best impressive things are ones that you can linger over. Things you can enjoy. Like an incredible explosion of colour as the sun sets in a clear sky. Or your favourite meal shared with your closest friends.

This is an edited transcript of a sermon I recently gave on Genesis 1:1-2:3, the story of God creating the universe. In it, I hope you’ll see something that should make us all go wow. But first, here’s a bit of context.

Genesis is an introduction to the first five books of the Bible, which some people call the Pentateuch. These books were all written by Moses, when God was leading the people of Israel from Egypt, through the desert, to the promised land. During that time wandering in the desert, the people of Israel had no home. They were surrounded by other nations who worshipped other gods. Imagine what that felt like. Imagine all the questions that would be going round their heads: How could they know that their God is the true God? How could they know who they were?

Israel wandered around the desert for 40 years, long enough for one generation to die and another to grow up and take their place. How would they answer their children’s questions:

Daddy, why are we in the desert?

Mummy, why does God live in a tent?

Those people over there worship the sun and moon, why don’t we?

When are we going to stop moving?

Will we ever have a home?

In Genesis, God uses the stories of history to answer these questions. It tells the stories of how God created the universe. Why the world is in the broken state it’s in today. It then zooms in on the story of God’s relationship with His chosen people, finishing with how Israel ended up in Egypt in the first place. It’s a book of origins and generations, showing God’s people who they are and who God is.

We are on a journey to a promised home, just like the Israelites were, and we need to learn the same lessons that God’s people learned back then. We need to learn who we are. We need to learn who God is. So we are turning to the beginning of their story and the beginning of our story. The story of God’s relationship with His people over the generations.

But first…

The best place to start any story is at its beginning, but before we dive into Genesis 1 I want to acknowledge that the creation story found here can be a point of friction for us. Our belief in a Creator God has brought us under fire and ridicule from our culture. It laughs at the idea of an all-creating God as being unscientific, misguided, or just plain stupid.

How to interpret the creation story can be a point of friction between Christians, too. There has been plenty of debate over exactly what it means in terms of how long God took to make everything, and people who are Christians, people who know and love God, have different views. These views fit broadly between the two extremes of believing God created the universe in literally seven days, or over the course of billions of years.

This is a bigger issue for another time, but whatever you think, we must prioritise believing what God actually tells us in the Bible over what we think it says, or what the rest of the world tells us, because God’s Word is truth – not our ideas, and not other people’s opinions.

And to see what God is telling us in Genesis 1, we need to see its purpose. It wasn’t written to explain the details of how God created. Its focus is on the fact that God created everything.

God created… by the power of His word

And firstly, God created by the power of His Word.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1

These are probably some of the most familiar words from the Bible, yet these 10 words are one of the biggest understatements I’ve ever seen! We are used to the world existing – of course we are. It’s been there for as long as we remember! From before we were born! But we can be so used to it being there that we forget how big a thing it is that the world is here in the first place.

Genesis says that in the beginning, the earth was formless, void, and dark. There was nothing. When we think of nothing, we often think of empty space, but really most bit of what we’d think of as being empty space are full of heat, and light, and air. In the beginning there was absolute nothingness – no substance, no light, and no order. Not just empty space, but no space to be empty!

But then we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the formless emptiness… something is about to happen.

And something does: God speaks. And the universe comes into being.

Time and time again in this chapter we read “God said… and it was so” or “God said… so God created” Have you ever stopped to think about what this means? Think about it – who can create out of nothing? I can’t make anything out of nothing – at the very least I need my body to physically put stuff together! But God spoke the universe into existence.

He said “Let there be light”, and there was light.

God said “Let there be an expanse separate from water”, and the heavens – the sky and space – were drawn apart from everything else.

God said “Let water and land separate”, and there were seas and continents.

He said “Let the earth sprout vegetation,” and the earth became lush and green.

God said “Let there be lights in the heavens to separate the day from the night” and the heart of the Sun started to burn.

He said “Let the water swarm” and “let birds fly” and “Let the earth bring forth living creatures” and we have billions of species that still fascinate us today.

He said “Let us make man…” and Adam took his first breath.

We should be utterly awestruck by God’s power.

The universe exists because God told it to exist. God is so powerful that just by telling something to exist, He doesn’t only create the outline of a thing, but all of the details of how it works and lives and moves.

With a word, God brought you into existence – every cell in your body in its place, every way that you think and feel written into your heart, every ability you have assigned and given to you. With a word! I can sing quite loudly but I can’t bring anything into existence with my voice!

Only God has that kind of power.

Isn’t that just awesome?

If God is powerful enough to command everything to exist and keep it existing with that same command, who are we compared to Him?

Who are we to make our own rules and decide for ourselves the way the world should be?

Who are we to tell Him how to behave?

Instead of trying to pretend that we are masters of our own universe, shouldn’t we be bowing to the One who has given us bodies and breath?

We should be awestruck by how God has shown His power in making the universe, and give ourselves to Him as people that He has created and rightly rules over.

God created… with purpose and order

God doesn’t just create with power. He creates with purpose and order.

We see it in how Genesis describes God creating the universe. He has six working days and makes a different thing in each. And each day has an evening and a morning – at the end of every day God stops working, and at the beginning of the next day He starts working on the next thing to be created.

He creates with purpose and in order. Each day builds on the last. God starts by separating light and darkness, the heavens and the water and the land. He then fills them. He fills space with stars, the Sun and the Moon. He gives them the job of measuring time. He then fills the earth with things that are more and more complicated. Plants sprout from the new ground. Animals soar and swim and scuttle. And finally, God creates humans. He makes us in His image, to reflect Him more than any other part of creation. And that means He made us to know Him. To have a relationship with Him.

When God has finished creating, He rests. God sits back and enjoys His creation.

Because God has created the universe to enjoy it!

God created… to enjoy

As our passage says, God creates everything, and the sixth day ends. Then it says:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.” – Genesis 2:1-2

God rests. But what does this mean? Isaiah 40 says that God is the everlasting God who doesn’t get tired. So is God just not bothering to do anything any more? We know that isn’t true – God is constantly at work in the whole Bible and through history. So He can’t be sitting around, doing nothing for the rest of time because He’s finished His work and left the universe far behind on His desk at the office. What is He doing?

Look at Genesis 1:31:

“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good…” – Genesis 1:31a

The last thing God does before He rests is to look at all He has made and declare it to be “very good”. God sits back, not to have a snooze, but to take pleasure in His finished work. To enjoy it. To spend time enjoying it.

God delighted in His creation! God was happy with it. We can think of God being stern and serious and maybe a bit scary, but God is a joyful God. He takes pleasure in what He has made. And He intends for us to enjoy the universe too. God has commanded us to work as He worked, with six days of labour and one of special rest, as it says in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. This isn’t just giving us a working week, it’s giving us rest, too.

As God’s people today, we should have one day a week where we stop our work. Where we leave the office behind. Where we leave the coursework on the shelf. Where all the chores, and the life admin, and anything else that distracts us gets put on hold. So that we can enjoy the universe God has made. But far more import than that, so we enjoy what God made us for – relationship with Him. So make time to enjoy God and enjoy His creation. Make time to enjoy Him as part of God’s people together – that’s what church is for.

I’m not saying that the world is perfect now. I know it isn’t. There are parts of it that are hard and confusing and painful. But God made the universe to be good. And although creation has been corrupted by our sin, it still hasn’t lost that goodness. It can still be enjoyed, and we can still delight in the smell of flowers, the roar of the sea, a fantastic lunch when you’re absolutely starving.

Creation hasn’t just kept its goodness now. One day it will be made completely new again. In Colossians 1 it says that on the cross Jesus reconciled everything to Himself. He dealt with our sin, that had broken our relationship with God. Jesus made a way for creation to be made new, and for us to be made new to live in that creation. To live in a world that is better than what we see now because it won’t be twisted by evil any more. A world that will be everything that God has made it to be. Where we will truly enjoy God and the universe at its best without anything getting in the way. But the only way we will get there is if we believe in God and trust in Jesus as our Saviour.

In God’s Word today we have seen that God created everything. He created by the power of His word. He created with purpose and order. And He created the universe for Him to enjoy, and for us to enjoy it with Him, because creation is good and we are made to know God. And if you trust God and believe in Jesus, you can look forward to this universe being made perfect again in the future.

So the next time you see something that makes you go ‘Wow!’ remember how it got there in the first place.

Remember that God spoke it into being.

Remember that God made it to be good and that you can enjoy it.

Remember that if this world feels painful and confusing, it will one day be made perfect, and if you’re a Christian you will enjoy it forever.

But most of all, remember that you are made to enjoy creation with God, in relationship with Him. So if you don’t know God, why not choose today to believe in Him? To become what you were made for?

When was the last time you lived without light? Because we have electricity in our homes we can live with the lights on 24 hours a day if we want, although it wouldn’t be very eco-friendly! Light is useful. Plants use it to generate food, we use it to see, to have the internet, to watch DVDs.

But besides being useful, light is beautiful. White light is made up of a whole load of different colours of light. When it shines through a prism it refracts, which means it is split into all the different colours that make up white light and looks really pretty like this:

(C) Andrew Davidhazy

This isn’t something you only see in a school science lesson, it’s what makes gemstones sparkle. Diamonds are especially good at it. When white light goes through a well-cut diamond, it bounces around inside it and shines out in different colours from its different facets, beautifully sparkling and shining. One beam of white light, shining through a diamond, gives off a whole host of different colours through its different facets:

(C) Shutterstock.com

Not only that, but things that light shines through are really useful – things like light bulbs and windows and magnifying glasses. They are useful because light shines through them to do something, like make something look bigger, or find your way around in the dark, or let you see through a wall.

At my church we’ve been going through a sermon series about the Holy Spirit and the gifts that He gives. Before this sermon, we’d seen that only the Holy Spirit can make us spiritually alive and believe in Jesus. We learned that the Spirit’s main goal is to point people to Jesus and glorify Him. We also learned that the Spirit works in Christians to transform us and grow godly character and behaviour in us.

In this sermon, we moved from looking at what the Holy Spirit does in us to what He does through us. In 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, we’ll see where they come from, who they are given to, and why. Have a look at 1 Corinthians 12:7: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit, to every Christian, for the sake of others. Let’s pick that apart:

Given by the Holy Spirit

Paul wrote the book of 1 Corinthians to the church in Corinth to correct wrong behaviour in their life as a church together. This passage is part of a number of chapters about what worship together should look like. Before he launches in to talking about spiritual gifts, he reminds the Corinthians where their relationship with the Holy Spirit began:

“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.”

1 Corinthians 12:1-3

It is only by the Holy Spirit that someone can say “Jesus is Lord”. This doesn’t mean that someone who isn’t a Christian can’t say a combination of “Jesus” “is” and “Lord” in that order, but that only the Holy Spirit enables us to truly mean it when we say it, to truly place Jesus as Lord over our lives. This is the Spirit making Jesus known to us and giving spiritual birth to us, making us spiritually alive, as we saw a couple of weeks ago. When we become Christians the Holy Spirit actually comes and lives in us. Earlier in 1 Corinthians, in chapter three verse 16, Paul says “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Think about that – God’s Holy Spirit, that hovered above the unformed waters before creation, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.

And the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. Just quickly skim verses 4-11 – different gifts are described, but they are all given by the “same Spirit” (v4), “through the Spirit” (v8), by “the one Spirit” (v9), and are all “empowered by one and the same Spirit” and apportioned by Him (v11). As verse seven says, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” a “manifestation” is something that clearly shows or embodies something that you can’t see, so these “manifestations of the Spirit” are visible signs of the Holy Spirit living in someone and working through them. A diamond doesn’t shine because it generates light, it shines because light from somewhere else shines through it. So the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives aren’t about an abstract sense of spirituality where we’re given power to become some kind of demigod. No, the Spirit empowers us with gifts so that He can do something through them. We’ve seen before that the Spirit’s main concern is to point people to Jesus and glorify Him. So a gift isn’t spiritual because it looks supernatural. It is spiritual because it is given by the Spirit to point others to Jesus.

The Spirit also chooses who gets given what. Verse 11 says He “apportions to each one individually as he wills.” Sometimes we can downplay who the Holy Spirit is and end up reducing Him in our minds to merely a force sent from God. But He is a Person in the Trinity. He is God, and He has sovereign will to give gifts as He sees fit.

Given to every Christian

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit…” [v7a]. The Holy Spirit gives every Christian spiritual gifts. He doesn’t assign them to us because we earn them, but because of God’s grace. He doesn’t see someone and think they are a good enough Christian to be given the gift of wisdom, or healing, or whatever. No, the gifts the Spirit gives are given to us as part of the renewed relationship that we have with God because Jesus bought it for us on the cross. This means that every single Christian in this room has spiritual gifts. If you are a Christian, there are visible ways in which the Holy Spirit has equipped you and works through you.

Not every gift the Spirit gives is the same in everyone. As it says in verses 4-6, there are varieties of gifts given by the Spirit. Paul gives a list of some of them a bit further down the paragraph: utterance of wisdom and knowledge, God-given wisdom and insight in particular situations that’s beyond the ordinary. A special equipping of faith to see beyond circumstances to trust in God. The working of miracles: God manifesting His power in supernatural acts. The ability to distinguish between spirits: discerning whether something someone says or does comes from the Holy Spirit’s work, Satan’s activity, or their own sinful human nature. The other gifts of healing, prophecy and speaking in and interpreting tongues were covered later in this sermon series (you can find the sermons here). All the things that Paul lists here are impressive, but it isn’t a definitive list of Spirit-given manifestations of Himself. In verse 28 Paul mentions apostles, teachers, helping and administrating. In Romans 12:6-21 he talks about teaching, encouraging, generosity, leading and being merciful. In Ephesians 4:11-15 he describes evangelists too. In 1 Peter 4:10-11 Peter talks about speaking God’s words to people and serving others.

There are a whole load of different gifts that we can be given. It all comes from the same God, but will look different in each person, like one beam of light coming in to a diamond shines out through its different facets in different colours.

Given for the common good

Having these abilities in and of themselves is not why we have them. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (v7) We are not given these gifts to keep to ourselves and think how great and “spiritual” we are. No, the whole purpose of the Holy Spirit giving every Christian manifestations of Himself is so that we use them for the good of other people. The church that Paul is writing to here had a problem with arrogance and disunity. They saw their meetings together as a way to show off how spiritual they thought they were. But verse 7 says there is no place for that in the Church. Looking back at verse 4, it says there are varieties of gifts and varieties of service and activities.

A magnifying glass is no use if it holds on to light. The whole point of it is that light goes through so it can be used to help someone see something better. And what use is a completely blacked-out window? If you cover a light bulb, the bulb gets the light but it’s no good to anyone keeping that light to itself! If the Holy Spirit gives you a certain gift, enjoy that you have it but realise that you have been given it in order to serve others with it. If the Spirit gives you the ability to speak wisely and knowledgeably, it is so that you can share that wisdom with others. If He gives you extraordinary faith, it is to encourage others to trust Him, too. If working miracles, it’s to serve others and show God’s power, not your prestige. If you are gifted in discernment, it’s to help others see what is from God and what isn’t.

It’s no mistake that straight after these verses come a passage about the Church being made up of many unique but united parts, like a body. Because just as God has created us all unique, by His Spirit He has equipped us all uniquely to serve others in the context of the Church. Like the facets of a well-cut diamond shine out all the different colours in white light, as each of us uses the gifts that the Spirit has given us for the sake of others in the church family we will show each other a beautiful spectrum of who God is.

Shining bright

In this passage we’ve seen that the Holy Spirit gives gifts and abilities to every Christian so that we use them to serve others. So how should we respond?

Firstly, we should be filled with wonder at what God does in and through us. His Spirit gives manifestations of Himself to each and every Christian. If you truly believe that Jesus is Lord, you have Spirit-given gifts. Not because of whether you think you’re a good Christian or not, but because the Spirit has enabled you to be a Christian. So if you struggle to believe that you have something to contribute to your church family, be encouraged – you do. The gifts you have been given are manifestations of the Spirit. God’sSpirit visibly lives in us! So let’s be in awe of the God who chooses to put His Spirit in us to make us more like Him, and empowers us to do things that reflect Him.

Secondly, we must be humble. Because gifts of the Spirit are gifts of God’s grace, we must remember that they have been assigned to us by God. We don’t spiritually “level up” to get them, and they aren’t skills to be learned and collected. No one of us is better or worse than another because of the particular set of gifts that God has given. If you do have a particular gift it isn’t a thing that you own, like a spiritual multi-tool that fixes other people’s problems and makes you feel good because you’ve Done It Yourself. It’s a way that God works through you, not you work to be like God.

We should also humbly depend on God to give us gifts and empower us to serve. If you long to have a particular gifting, pray for it! If you can recognise gifts in yourself, praise God for them and ask Him to show you how you can serve others with them. If you see them in someone else, thank God for them and also encourage that person in using their gifting.

Finally, since we have been given spiritual gifts to use to serve other people, we should use them to serve other people! This could be telling people on the other side of the world who have never heard the Gospel the good news that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection means that we can be right with God. Or it could mean telling the people who live next door or share an office with you. It could be sacrificially giving up time and energy to help a brother or sister in Christ who is suffering. It could be praying persistently for people, situations or countries that so desperately need God to act in or for them. It could mean spending your life working hard to lead a church. It could mean bringing up your children to know and love God and what it looks like to live as one of His people. Or standing up for truth when it hurts, or serving week after week on the welcome team, or a well-timed humble word of correction, or welcoming someone you don’t know… there is no end to what this practically looks like, because God is endlessly creative in not just how He has made us as individuals but also in how He empowers us to work for others’ good and His glory. Every single Christian has God-given ways that He has empowered them to serve, so let’s serve each other with what God has given us in that He has equipped us to do it. And as we serve, let’s humbly depend on God and serve in His strength and power, so that we will point people to Jesus and not ourselves. Let’s choose to use what the Holy Spirit has given us for the sake of other people, so God will show the full spectrum of His glory through us.

A few months ago I stumbled across an entry in my journal from a day I spent praying and looking at the Bible. Every so often I go through cycles of just being fed up with myself and my own sinfulness, so when I had a day to spend time with God I read Romans 5-8 and prayed about it. I don’t think it’s unusual for Christians to go through times where we get really fed up of our own sin and worry that God isn’t all that far away from giving up on us because we’re so rubbish at being godly. Sin feels like this monster that won’t let us go, and we wonder whether we’ll ever be able to resist that temptation or be free from that weakness or know what it means for that thing to not be a struggle. The below post is based on what I wrote in my journal that day, and what God showed me about assurance through those chapters in Romans.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:8-9

… while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly… while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Romans 5:6, 8-9

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:1-2

Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1) – yet this so often is our struggle: when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law that dwells in my members… I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25) We can be Christians, love God, and know we have been redeemed and forgiven but yet can’t seem to shake sin. It digs its claws in; our sinful old nature doesn’t want to let go. And so we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our full adoption as children of God, the complete redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23). This is our fight of faith: we hate the sin we commit and the temptations we fall into. It sickens us.

Yet this groaning is a good thing. Our horror and disgust at our own sin is a good thing, because it is a result of the Spirit’s work to convict us of sin and drive us to Jesus. The Spirit of life has set us free in Christ from sin and death (Romans 8:2) and lives in us (v10-11), giving us life. Our old body of death keeps needing to be put to death and it distresses us to still be attached to it – because we are children of God (v15-17) – and so we moan and cry out and ache and long for the day when our sinful nature will finally fall away to be remembered no more.

Further still, sin does not have the final say by any means. In ourselves we may be helpless, but we are not “in” ourselves any more. We are in Christ. While we were unable to do anything to help ourselves, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:6). He took all this sinful nature from us upon Himself, and took it to the grave. So as much as we can’t yet get away from our sinful nature, it has no lasting hold on us because we are dead to it. Because of Jesus, sin has no power over us (Romans 6:14) because we are under grace now – just as death has no power over Jesus because He has been raised from the dead. Sin clings to us, but only as dead ivy clings to a wall because its roots stubbornly stick in. God is slowly removing those roots – because He has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).

Pre. Destined. God has spoken this over us and commanded it over our life’s path so that whatever happens we are being pulled in a Christlike direction. We are being made to be like Jesus! Granted, this won’t happen passively and we need to actively work at growing in holiness so that we don’t fall away (Hebrews 6: 1-12) but God won’t deny that growth to those who want to know and love Him and honour Him.

Until the day He returns we must still put sin to death, but the overwhelming truth for Christians (although hidden for now – Romans 8:19) is:

We have peace with God (Romans 5:1)

God’s love has been poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5)

We are reconciled with God (Romans 5:11)

We have been given righteousness (Romans5:17)

We are dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11)

Sin has no power over us (Romans 6:14)

We are freed from sin, and a slave to righteousness which leads to sanctification and eternal life (Romans 6:22)

We are not condemned (Romans 8:1)

We are in the Spirit, who is life and through whom God will give life to our mortal bodies (Romans 8:9, 11)

By the Spirit we can kill off our sinful nature (Romans 8:13)

We have the Spirit of adoption as a son and heir of God with Christ (Romans 8:15-17)

We have a glory that will be given me in the future (Romans 8:19, 21)

The Spirit prays for us better than we can, and the Father knows His mind (Romans 8:26-27)

All things work together for our good (Romans 8:28)

We will become like Jesus in character (Romans 8:29)

God will give us all things (Romans 8:32)

We are justified by God – no charge can stand against the righteousness we have been given (Romans 8:33)

Jesus, who died for our sin, is alive and praying for us – I cannot be condemned for the sin He took to the grave (Romans 8:34)

We cannot be separated from Jesus’ love, and everything that would try to destroy us and take me from Him will be made to serve us (Romans 8:35-39).

The fact that we feel broken over our sin and hate it is evidence of the Spirit of life being at work in us. So God can use precisely what would discourage us for our good if we remember that this anguish over sin is the result of His active work in us, and not evidence of us irreversibly falling away.

Our problem is our hearts that are so riddled with sin we can’t get away from it. But God has and will change them. In Jeremiah 31:33-34 He promised to write His law on our hearts so that we’ll want to do what’s godly. It will take a lifetime to get there, but day by day God is making us to be more like Jesus, to “make our hearts beat with His love, mercy, and passion for His glory” as my pastor put it in his sermon this morning. One day we will be free of the sin we hate. For now, we must pray and trust that God will change us and work against the dead sinful nature that does cling to us, but that one day will be long forgotten.

“Holy” is a word that’s hard to define. Like “glory”. What do you think of when you hear the word “holy”? Can you picture it?

A quick look at my Bible Dictionary shows that “holy” is hard to define. The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament carries connotations of separation and brightness; of God being so much different than we are, so pure, so powerful, so unique, so glorious, so transcendent. God is not like us. We are made in His image but how much is a person “like” the photo taken of them? The picture is like its subject, but the ink printed on a bit of photo paper isn’t the same as the real person in the flesh.

We sing about God’s holiness, and about Him making us holy, so often that we can take for granted what it means. A few months ago I was reading through Leviticus and Numbers, and I was struck anew by the fact that God’s holiness is… dangerous. It’s absolutely terrifying, like being trapped in a cage with a hungry tiger. It’s lethal. I’ll try and explain what I mean.

The book of Leviticus is part of the Old Testament Law given to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after they were rescued from slavery in Egypt. It deals with a lot of rules about how the OT worship system worked, and as part of that it talks a lot about cleanness and uncleanness. Cleanness in animals Israel were allowed to eat, in death, in childbirth, in disease and illness, in houses with a mould problem, in sex, in how you treat the vulnerable, in a whole load of everyday things! You read all the rules, and God can be pretty specific about what cleanness, or holiness, looks like.

Why does God care? Well, back in Exodus 20 the Law is given to show Israel what it looks like to be God’s people. And it looks like absolute perfection. Complete holiness, because God, their God, is holy (Leviticus 11:45, 19:2, 20:7). And God’s people are to reflect Him to the rest of the world – this is part of how all nations would be blessed through them (Genesis 12:2; 22:18) – and show them how good knowing God is – because when His people keep the covenant Law, God will bless them in abundance (Leviticus 26:3-13) and it looks amazing! Beautiful, lush, fertile land that provides a fantastic amount of food (v3-5); peace, and victory against all enemies (v6-8); a growing and flourishing nation (v9-10); and, best of all, God Himself living among them (v11-12).

But also, God requires a perfect people so that He can have relationship with them. God is perfect, pure, and holy, and can only be approached on His own terms. Israel had to worship in a certain way, the way God designed. Otherwise they would die. In Leviticus 10, two of Aaron’s sons try to offer incense to God in a way other than what He prescribed, and God literally vaporised them (10:2). The priests had to be completely sober when ministering in the tabernacle, otherwise they’d die (10:9). The Day of Atonement, a highlight in Israel’s religious year, the one day where the high priest was allowed to go into the bit of the tabernacle where God’s manifest presence was, was a matter of life and death. He had the awesome privilege of being able to meet God as face-to-face as someone could, but he had to burn incense so it made a cloud over the ark where God’s presence was otherwise he’d die (16:12-13). And this was besides having a complete wash, putting on special clothes, sacrificing a bull (as a sin offering to atone for his own sin), sacrificing a goat (sin offering for the nation), sprinkling the blood of the dead bull and goat on the covering of the ark to make the innermost bit of the tabernacle holy, and doing the same for the rest of the tabernacle, and sprinkling the altar outside with the blood to consecrate that as well. Then he takes a second goat, puts his hands on its head and confesses the sins of the nation, and then sends it off into the desert to figuratively carry their sins away. (Lev 16:1-22)

The priests had specific clothes they had to wear to just work around the Tabernacle (see Exodus 28 – I especially enjoy v42-43 where God commands them to wear pants or risk death). There were specific rules about who they could marry, prohibitions against touching dead bodies – even of their loved ones – what they did with their hair; and they had to be physically healthy and unblemished. See Leviticus 21 for a description of those rules. Coming near the Tabernacle was an offence punishable by death if you weren’t from the same tribe as the priests (Numbers 3:10), and all the things in the Tabernacle had to be carefully wrapped up in several layers of cloth and skins when being transported to prevent people being killed. (Numbers 4).

It’s insane how deadly God is, and this is just His presence. Human beings are sinful, so we can’t be in the same place as God, or even look at Him and expect to live, which is often why when people in the Bible see God they’re absolutely terrified. He is so pure, and we are so impure, that to dare to go near Him is to risk obliteration; as Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”. So why do we dare to even try to worship God? How can we dare to pray, to sing together on a Sunday if to approach the Holy One is to dance with death?

Our pure and holy God has always provided a way for the unworthy to approach Him. In the OT, this was an extensive sacrificial system where an animal bore the death penalty your personal sins deserved. The shed blood of a bull, or lamb, or goat, or pigeon, replaced your own to satisfy justice. But this pointed to something far greater that was to come. Because how can a dead sheep or cow be a decent substitute for the life of a human being? The poor animal probably doesn’t have a concept of God, let alone good and evil. And I’m pretty sure they weren’t lining up to get slaughtered on humanity’s behalf. As it says in Hebrews 10:4, it’s impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

But Hebrews also talks about Jesus Christ, the great High Priest and Sacrifice that the Old Testament worship system pointed to. Have a look at this:

“But when Christ appeared as high priest… he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Hebrews 9:11-14

On that rugged, blood-stained bit of wood on a hill 2,000 years ago Jesus Christ, the perfect, holy Son of God let Himself be beaten, whipped, mocked, abused and sentenced to death by suffocation while hanging in agony from some nails. And this death was His perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins and the sins of the human race for eternity. He swapped places with us and was obliterated by God’s wrath in our place so that we could be made holy (Colossians 1:22; Hebrews 10:10) Holy! You know, holy like God? The God who is so holy and pure Israel couldn’t go near Him unless they had a death wish? How awesome is that, that Jesus would give up His holiness and swap it for our moral filth at Calvary! And now we are counted perfect, righteous, pure, holy, forgiven; and not just merely acceptable and “safe” to go near God but sons, heirs, the beloved Bride of Christ! We haven’t just been given permission to approach the Throne, but to be close, so close to the One who sits on it! To call the God who once could not be approached “Father”, to be united in intimacy with the King of the ages, to have the Spirit of power who raises the dead live in us and work to help us and teach us… this is no small thing, and it should fill us with wonder.